Letters: Child care costs affect poverty

I'm writing about the column questioning why people should get off welfare. I found the scenario that Michael Tanner crafted to argue that benefits for the poor should be reduced to be unworkable and unrealistic.

In it, he argues that a single mother with a 1- and 4-year-old might receive $28,500 in benefits. If you refer to the study the article cites, a Wisconsin mother of two would receive just under $15,000 a year.

If that single mother goes to work at a full-time job that pays what I make at my job (less than than $28,500), how is she expected to pay for child care? Licensed child care in the Fox Valley costs about $9,000 a year per child. There is some reimbursement for poor workers, but there is a sliding co-payment.

The single working mother in this scenario could still be expected to pay about $10,000 a year for child care after the subsidy.

The cost of child care wasn't considered in the study and article. Rather than publish unfounded ballpark figures to argue that subsidies for the poor should be reduced, I encourage Post-Crescent Media to do research on scenarios that would be true in Wisconsin so that a debate about benefits to the poor could be framed on real data.

Sarah VanCleve,

Appleton

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Letters: Child care costs affect poverty

I'm writing about the column questioning why people should get off welfare. I found the scenario that Michael Tanner crafted to argue that benefits for the poor should be reduced to be unworkable and

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